


Complicated Melody

by miss_begonia



Series: Future Events [2]
Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-28
Updated: 2012-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-30 06:12:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_begonia/pseuds/miss_begonia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Nothing’s wrong,” Kris said. “Just – Katy’s…pregnant.”</p>
<p>Adam stared out at the skyline, the sun setting over houses and hills, sinking, sinking. He tilted his head to one side and felt the world shift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Complicated Melody

Kris is breathless on the phone, his voice thin through thousand times relayed wireless signals.   
  
“Adam,” he says. “Katy—’”  
  
“I’m on a plane,” Adam says. “Right now. Right this minute.”  
  
“Oh my God,” Kris says, and Adam thinks:  _Oh my God, Oh my God._  
  
*  
  
Adam had been eating ice cream and watching reruns of  _Gossip Girl_ , feet propped up on the coffee table. Quentin was slumped against him, adorably asleep before Chuck Bass even got in his first one-liner. They’d been back from their honeymoon three weeks, just long enough for Adam to get itchy, to feel ready to go back into the studio. Delicious anticipation hummed under his skin and creative energy ran through his marrow, a constant buzz and tingle better than any artificial high.  
  
“Hey, man,” Kris said, and he sounded strange, like he’d forgotten how to put sentences together, like sequencing was a science he hadn’t mastered yet.  
  
“Can I call you—“ Adam started to say, but Kris interrupted, “It’s kinda important.”  
  
Adam paused the TV and extricated himself from Quentin, leaving his ice cream to melt in the dish, and walked out onto the patio. The sea green tile was smooth and warm under his feet, breeze light in his hair.  
  
“What’s wrong?” he asked.  
  
“Nothing’s wrong,” Kris said. “Just – Katy’s…pregnant.”  
  
Adam stared out at the skyline, the sun setting over houses and hills, sinking, sinking. He tilted his head to one side and felt the world shift.  
  
“Oh my God,” he exclaimed. “Congratulations, Kris! Wow.”  
  
“I know, right?” Kris said, and hiccuped out a laugh.  
  
“That is so exciting,” he said. “Did you—“  
  
“It’s a surprise,” Kris said. “To us, too.”  
  
Adam wanted Kris to be there, in the flesh, so he could see his face, mark the way his eyes glazed and glinted, read the slump of his shoulders.  
  
“You’re going to be an amazing father,” Adam said, and he knew it was true, obvious and true. Kris would be gentle and patient, and he would love that baby without judgment, and there was nothing a parent could do more than that – hold a child close and then give them room to grow.  
  
“I wanted to ask you,” Kris said, then stopped.  
  
“Yeah?” Adam said. “Spit it out, Allen.”  
  
“Could you…Katy and I wondered if—“  
  
Adam felt Quentin’s hands on his shoulders, permeating him with sleepy touch. He turned to him and smiled, pressed a finger to his lips, mouthed  _Katy_  and  _pregnant_  and watched Quentin’s eyes widen.  
  
“We want you and Quentin to be this baby’s godparents,” Kris said.  
  
Adam was so glad for Quentin’s presence in that moment, because he very nearly fell, would have if Quentin hadn’t held him up.  
  
*  
  
“Fuck,” Adam mutters, and twists the cord in the useless jack of the arm of his seat. Looks like no TV on the way to Arkansas, and he could’ve used the distraction, especially since Quentin’s about ten rows back in the only other seat they could get last-minute. JetBlue doesn’t fly a whole lot from L.A. to Little Rock. Who knew.  
  
He wedges his earbuds into his ears and shuffles through his iPod, settling on the playlist Kris made for him a few months back after Adam sent him a shitload of electronica as an iMix entitled  _Dance Motherfucker Dance_. Kris had plotted his revenge carefully, then uploaded what Adam could only assume was the most quiet and least rhythmic music he could find.   
  
 _You give me WeHo, I give you Conway_ , he’d smirked in an email, and Adam had texted him  _if i fall asleep to this will u b mad?_  Kris texted back:  _only if it gives u nightmares._  
  
Adam didn’t tell him that sometimes he wants a little Conway in his life; when he’s stuck in traffic on the 405 inhaling fumes and contemplating murder, he thinks of that one week he spent there, two years ago, when Kris’ mom made them a roast and Adam and Kris sang Beatles songs outside on Kris’ back porch, late into the clear night until the words all ran together, Katy drowsy curled up in a wooden slat-back chair, murmuring  _baby, you should sleep, you need rest._  
  
When Adam thinks of Katy he sees the sweet cheerleader who baked for bake sales and went to every single one of Kris’ baseball games. Homecoming queen. But he knows Katy’s got fire in her, too, and Kris is in love with that fire. Kris is so undemanding and interior, but Katy brings him out of that shell, forces him out into the world, makes him demand something from it.  
  
 _If he were a song he’d be a complicated melody_ , India.Arie hums in Adam’s ear. So uncomplicated he is complicated after all. Adam used to make fun of Kris’ R&B addiction until he realized that R&B was the music that made Kris see there was more out there than what he knew, what he saw, what was all around him. Adam had disco and glam rock and Kris had R&B and what did it matter, really. Whatever it takes to get you there.  
  
He tilts his seat back and shuts his eyes and lets the music hold him close.  
  
*  
  
Kris looks exhausted and sweaty and like he doesn’t know where he is. Adam walks down the hospital hallway and tugs him into a hug, one smooth movement.  
  
“She’s fine,” Kris mumbles into Adam’s shirt. “She’s resting, she’s fine, the baby’s fine—“  
  
“I’m so glad,” Adam says. He pulls back and stares at Kris. “Tell me what you want me to do. Tell us how to help, we’ll help.”  
  
Quentin is standing off to the side, looking a little awkward. Kris blinks rapidly and says, “I could use some coffee.”   
  
Adam likes direction, likes knowing where he’s going. He lets Kris go and takes Quentin’s hand, threading their fingers together.  
  
“We’ll be back,” he says.  
  
They’re silent in the elevator, silent on the walk out because Adam refuses to get Kris shitty cafeteria coffee, will at least get him shitty Starbucks coffee. They’re silent until they’re walking back and Quentin places his hand on Adam’s shoulder and says, “Hey.”  
  
”Hey yourself,” Adam tosses back, but Quentin keeps him still, turns him until their lips meet in a lopsided kiss.  
  
“You can do this,” Quentin says.  
  
Adam doesn’t think this is about him, but he feels Quentin’s words in his chest anyway, a thump-thump rhythm, a truth that burns.  
  
“I know,” Adam says.  
  
“Okay,” Quentin says. “I just thought you might need to hear it.”  
  
When they brush back the curtain, Adam’s eyes fall first on Katy, pink-cheeked and beautiful and exhausted, asleep under pale hospital sheets pulled up to her chin. Kris sits in a chair by her bedside, cradling a bundle of fabric in his arms, a bundle of fabric Adam realizes, with a start, is a baby.  
  
“Shhh,” Kris says, because the baby is sleeping, and Katy is sleeping, and the room is so quiet it aches. Adam’s spent a lot of time trying to get comfortable with the quiet moments in life, the in-betweens, the resting. He is no good at being inert. He likes action and reaction too much, movement and motion and dance.   
  
He places the coffee down on the bedside table and settles into a chair in the corner. Kris catches his eye and smiles, one corner of his mouth twitching up, and Adam thinks maybe there is something to be said for stillness, for moments: Kris’ hair sticking up in clumps and his forehead bunched with wrinkles and that baby’s hand wrapped around his finger, small and perfect and miraculous.  
  
*  
  
The baby’s name is Annabelle, Kris says, and Adam thinks  _Annabelle Allen_  and dies a little inside. She’s so lovely – tufts of soft, dark hair and wide grey eyes. She looks at Adam like she’s got his number already, like she knows he’s thinking about what kind of outfits he can buy for her, clothes that sparkle and have unicorns and fairies and princesses all over them. Tiaras with fake diamonds. Feather boas. Little girls  _love_  to play dress up.  
  
“She looks like you,” Adam tells Kris.   
  
He doesn’t say,  _She’s beautiful_ , but Kris still flushes and jams his thumbs into his pockets, glancing up and meeting Adam’s eyes and then looking away.  
  
  
*  
  
Later, Adam stumbles into the hotel room, locks himself in the bathroom and calls Neil.  
  
“What,” Neil says when he picks up the phone, and Adam sighs.  
  
“I think I’m going to cry,” Adam says.  
  
“If you cry, I’m hanging up on you,” Neil says.  
  
“You are the worst brother ever,” Adam says.  
  
“On the contrary,” Neil says. “I’m the best brother ever. I have a mug that says so.”  
  
“I’m in Arkansas,” Adam says.  
  
“Ah. The Deep South. Suddenly your potential tears make so much more sense.”  
  
“Katy had the baby,” Adam says.  
  
“ _It doesn't make any difference to me what a man does for a living, you understand, it's just that your business is a little dangerous,_ ” Neil says in a low, hoarse voice.  
  
“What?”  
  
“It’s a  _Godfather_  reference, Jesus Christ,” Neil says. “How are you so ridiculous?”  
  
Adam lets out an explosive sigh.  
  
“Okay, okay,” Neil says. “I’m sorry to make light of your pain. Katy had the baby, that’s awesome. What’s up?”  
  
“Kris has a baby,” Adam says. “It’s like he’s all grown up or something.”  
  
“I think he is kinda grown up,” Neil says. “Being married and having a family and a career and shit.”  
  
“I don’t feel like I’m as grown up as he is,” Adam mutters. “Which – I know that sounds stupid, so please don’t tell me it sounds stupid.”  
  
There’s a long pause on the other end, then Neil says, “I think you’re grown up in different ways. Well, some of the same ways. But…also different ways.”  
  
“Explain.”  
  
“In case you forgot, you’re married too, buddy. That’s pretty major. And you have a career, despite the fact that you have a terrible voice that burns my ears whenever I listen to it.”  
  
Adam snorts, curling one knee into his chest. “Shut the fuck up.”  
  
“And you live out in L.A. on your own in your crazy-ass house and you keep it together, dude,” Neil continues. “Most of the time you do. So you’re grown up too. But maybe you don’t want the same things Kris wants. And that’s okay, because you can still be grown up and fabulous without wanting those things.”  
  
Adam itches his eye and examines his finger, smoky black from eyeliner. “I don’t know what I want.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” Neil says softly. “There’s a first time for everything.”  
  
*  
  
Quentin manages to actually make food in their hotel kitchen, which is a feat worth noting, but then again, Quentin is a miracle-worker. Anytime Quentin would come visit Adam when he was on tour he’d insist they find a hotel with a kitchen of some kind, and he’d conjure meals out of thin air so they could eat together in their own space and not have to worry about cameras or fans. In that fictional interview Adam’s always composing in his head, filled with the questions people never ask him, he’d say,  _If a man can fuck you and feed you, he is worth holding onto, ladies. It’s the truth._  
  
They have sex in their hotel bed, sheets bunched around them and sweat soaking through. Afterward, panting and trembling, Quentin reaches out and cups Adam’s cheek, flicking his tongue between Adam’s parted lips.  
  
“It’s like you think we could make babies this way,” Quentin laughs.  
  
Adam stays up for hours after Quentin falls asleep, picking his nail polish off into a tiny mountain of shavings, watching the light filter through the blinds and paint shadows on the walls.  
  
*  
  
He wakes to the buzz of his cell phone next to his ear, fists it and presses buttons until he hears Kris’ voice on the other end, drawling, “Get up, you lazy bastard.”  
  
“M’up,” Adam grumbles.   
  
“You are not up,” Kris says, a smug tinge to his voice. “I can tell.”  
  
“I’m up, I’m up,” Adam says, and remembers how Kris would rouse him in the mansion sometimes, pressing one cold hand to his shoulder and dissolving into helpless laughter when Adam shrieked.  _Your face, man_ , he’d giggle. _Your face._  
  
“C’mon over,” Kris says. “We’re having a picnic for Annabelle.”  
  
“We’ll be there,” Adam says.  
  
He takes less time to get ready than usual, forgoes the typical make-up routine for a little eyeliner and Chapstick and an extra-long shower. The water feels like heaven, washing away the sterile scent of hospitals and the musty recycled taste of airplane air. He brushes his teeth and kisses Quentin good morning, ignoring Quentin’s raised eyebrows.  
  
“It’s Conway, baby,” Adam says, like that explains everything, and it sort of does.  
  
*  
  
Adam mimes shoving a fake microphone under Kris’ chin, saying in an extra-bright TV reporter voice, “So how does it feel to be a daddy, Kristopher Allen?”  
  
“Pretty dang good,” Kris says.   
  
His eyes crinkle at the corners as he says it, and Adam is reminded of just how good-looking Kris is. Not that he ever forgets – would that he could be so lucky – but sometimes it strikes him: how handsome Kris is, partly nice genes and features that are strong but soft, but it’s also who he is shining through his face, quiet and sweet and _good_.  
  
They haven’t really talked since Adam arrived yesterday, but now they’ve got a moment alone, sitting out in Kris’ parents’ backyard, sipping lemonade under muggy August sun and watching Kris’ father work the grill. Katy’s holding Annabelle, looking like a natural, and Kris is watching her with a mixture of love and admiration, lips parted and eyes a bit crossed.  
  
“You look like you’re in love,” Adam says, then thinks:  _What did I just say?_  
  
Kris turns to him, a goofy smile on his face.  
  
“Oh, I am so in love,” Kris says. “I am so in love with that little girl.”  
  
Quentin is talking to Katy, making loopy hand gestures with his hands, and Katy throws her head back and laughs. Annabelle shifts in her arms, restless, and Katy lifts her and places her in Quentin’s arms. Quentin’s an uncle twice over, isn’t fazed by small children, even babies only one day old. He holds her expertly, supporting her head, and she slumps into his shoulder, already halfway on the way to sleep.  
  
Adam inhales, feeling the breath enter his lungs and expand them.   
  
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Kris says.  
  
“Me too,” Adam whispers.  
  
*  
  
“A toast,” Kris says, raising his beer. He’s flushed, a combination of the heat and food and exhaustion, and his hand is warm on Adam’s back, just above his shoulder blade. Kris is everybody’s friend tonight; he can’t stop touching everything and everyone, like he can’t believe it’s all real.  
  
“A toast,” Neil Allen says, raising his glass.  
  
“To Adam and Quentin,” Kris says. “For coming all the way out here to share this with us.”  
  
Adam feels Kris’ hand bunch in his shirt, and he’s suddenly hot everywhere, conscious of the freckles on his hands and the way his skin must look in this light, uneven and peppered and strange.  
  
“Thank you,” Quentin says when Adam doesn’t speak up. “For making us a part of this, Kris and Katy.”  
  
Katy smiles at them both, and Adam’s throat is so tight, so tight he can’t swallow.  
  
“And to my girls,” Kris says, too loud in the quiet night. “Katy and Annabelle, I love you, I love you, I love you.”  
  
“Uh oh, Kris is gonna cry,” Katy says, and they all laugh.   
  
Kris makes his way around the table to hug her, and they stay like that for awhile, embracing. The conversation sways to other things, Kim wanting to know about Adam’s new record and what he’s been up to and how the remodel’s going on the kitchen. Adam does his best to answer her barrage of questions, smiling and nodding, but there’s a part of him that’s floating, not present.  
  
He wants to be present. He does. But when Quentin takes his hand under the table, palm impossibly cool and dry, he thinks,  _Fuck_.  
  
*  
  
Katy finds him later, sitting outside on the porch with his hands pressed together in his lap. He’s sweaty and over-full and tired, but he knows that when he and Quentin go back to their hotel room he won’t be able to sleep.  
  
“How are you, Adam?” Katy asks, tilting her head to one side.  
  
Adam rubs a hand through his hair. “I feel like I should be asking you that.”  
  
“Oh, everybody’s asking me that,” Katy says. “I’m sick of it, honestly. Anyway, I’m fine. But you seem – well, you don’t seem very Adam-like to me.”  
  
He laughs. “Really?”  
  
“You seem tired,” Katy says. “Are you tired?”  
  
Katy’s such a mother, Adam realizes. She’s going to be so good at this.  
  
“I’m fine,” Adam says, but he knows he’s not fooling her, not with the way she’s watching him in the dark, shiny blond hair falling across her face.  
  
“You know, we didn’t have to think twice about who we wanted as godparents,” Katy says. “It was always going to be you.”  
  
Adam’s heart does a trip-step in his chest. He presses his palm against his thigh, wanting to feel fabric under his hand, to touch something, anything.  
  
“Don’t be fine, honey,” Katy says, and places her tiny hand on his cheek. “Be happy.”  
  
*  
  
At 2 am Adam’s finally beginning to nod off in his hotel room, Quentin curled up next to him, hand splayed across his chest, when his phone buzzes on the nightstand. Quentin stirs but doesn’t wake, and Adam flips it open.  
  
 _if ur awake, call me_ , the message says. It’s from Kris.  
  
Adam rolls out of bed and slips on a t-shirt, pushing the door open into the hallway. He slides down the wall and dials number two on his speed-dial.  
  
“Hey,” Kris picks up after one ring, his voice muffled. “One sec.”  
  
There’s a rustling and shuffling and then he hears a door shut, and Adam knows Kris is outside. Kris told him once that he thinks better outdoors – something about the air and the space and the open-ness, the lack of walls and edges and doors and screens.  
  
“I was thinking,” Kris says suddenly, and he feels so close, his voice right in Adam’s ear. “That one time on the Idol tour – you remember, when you almost kicked Danny’s ass?”  
  
Adam laughs. “One time?”  
  
“He was giving you shit about your costume,” Kris says. “It had, like, sequins on the edges and—“  
  
“I loved that jacket,” Adam says. “It was amazing.”  
  
“It was amazing on you,” Kris says. “On anybody else…”  
  
Adam rubs at his eyes. “Don’t sugar-coat it, buddy.”  
  
“But that’s the thing about you, Adam,” Kris says. “You’re that guy. You’re the one who can wear the crazy clothes and own it, the boots made out of reptiles and glitter all over your face, because it looks right on you.”  
  
“Did you text me at 2 am because you wanted to talk about my sartorial choices?” Adam says. “Because I will talk about my fashion sense all day long, but you just had a baby, man.”  
  
There’s a sharp intake of breath on the other end, then a terrifying moment of silence when Kris could be thinking about anything, could be considering hanging up.  
  
“I didn’t mean that like it sounded,” Adam says quickly. “I meant—“  
  
“Hey, no, I get it,” Kris says, and Adam thinks about how he likes when Kris spends a significant amount of time around his family, because his vowels smooth out and he drawls, and Adam never gets tired of that, how Kris sounds when he’s comfortable. “But I feel like…I wanted my daughter to get that in her life.”  
  
“You wanted your daughter to have jackets embroidered with sequins?” Adam says.  
  
“I wanted her to get that – confidence,” Kris says. “I want her to believe she could do anything, that it’s all possible. Because it is.”  
  
Adam thinks of the night of the finale, four years ago, sitting with his knee pressed against Kris’ in the back room at some party, tipsy and tired. He remembers the way Kris leaned in and said,  _Congratulations_ , and he smelled minty and sweet. He was both the last person Adam wanted to see and the only one, in that moment. Nothing made sense, and Kris’ hand was solid pressed against his thigh, and Adam thought:  _Maybe.  
  
Not everything,_ he thinks.  _Not everything is possible._  
  
“I can give her that,” Adam says. “You can give her that too.”  
  
“I know,” Kris says, and Adam thinks:  _he knows, he knows,_  and  _he’ll never, he’ll never._  
  
*  
  
Quentin and Adam go shopping in the morning for baby clothes, and it’s maybe the most fun Adam’s ever had in a mall. Quentin’s kind and patient but a little restless, losing his cool for a split second in Nordstrom when Adam spends ten full minutes agonizing over which dress to buy.  
  
“Get the one that glitters,” Quentin says, and he’s a little snide when he says it, but Adam picks the one with sequins around the collar. He thinks:  _what glitters never fades._  
  
At Kris’ house, they heat up chili from the neighbors. They  _ooh_  and  _aah_  over the presents, and Katy tells him he went overboard. Adam thinks he may have actually purchased the entire baby clothing department at Macy’s, but he just smiles and says, “Never.”  
  
Adam’s perched on a chair in the living room when Kris ambushes him, settling Annabelle into his arms, a sloppy grin on his face.  
  
He can’t believe how  _warm_  she is, this little furnace of a human being, and she clutches at the fabric of his silk shirt, stubby fingers sliding over the cool, slippery material. Her eyes are pure Kris, puppy all the way, and Adam knows this is a girl who will always get what she wants, even when she doesn’t know she wants it.  
  
“You’re gorgeous, baby girl,” Adam says, and she smiles at him, toothless and wide, like she knows it already.


End file.
